A QUESTION.

My Psyche, straying in a glimmering night, A flitting moth, o’er drenched and drowsy bloom. Sees the faint radiance from thy spirit’s room And to that distant hope directs her flight. Thus, in forlornest need and longing-plight, The lost bee flies to die in golden broom; Thus hies the insect to the spider’s loom, That dew-decked peril, flashing in the light. What wilt thou do? Thy splendor softly shade That flies may quiver round it unafraid? Or burn and dazzle, till the wings that soar, Shrivelled and scorched, are useless evermore? Or wilt thou draw the screen and close the bars, That the poor baffled moth may seek the stars.